General Notes

Edward III (1312-1377), king of England (1327-1377), who initiated the long, drawn-out struggle with France called the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453). Edward was born at Windsor, the older son of King Edward II. He was proclaimed king after his father was forced to abdicate in 1327. Before Edward came of age, power resided with his mother, Isabella of France, and her lover, Roger de Mortimer. In 1330 the young king had Mortimer hanged and confined his mother to her home.
In 1333 Edward battled and defeated the Scots. In 1337 France came to Scotland's aid, and Edward declared war on France. The English armies had numerous successes, culminating in the Peace of Calais, which in 1360 gave England all of Aquitaine; in return, Edward renounced his claim to the French throne, which he had first made in 1328. In 1366 Edward renewed the war with France, disavowing the Peace of Calais. This time, however, the English armies were unsuccessful. After the truce of 1375, Edward retained few of his previously vast possessions in France. Edward was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II.

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Edward III (1312-77), King of England (1327-77). " Evil be to him who evil thinks." Quoted in: Polydore Vergil, Anglicae Historiae. Alleged remark at the falling of the Countess of Salisbury's garter, presumably when the order of Garter was founded in 1344: no contemporary evidence whatsoever, but the traditional tale was current in Henry VIII's reign. (See: Thomas de Beauchamp)

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EDWARD III was born Nov. 13, 1312, at Windsor Castle, and was the eldest son of Edward II and Isabella, dau. of Phillip IV, of France. His mother's life was stained with the foulest crimes and his father's death was revenged by the perpetual imprisonment of Isabella, and the public execution of her paramour, Mortimer. On the 29th of January, 1327, he was crowned King of England. Edward would not accept the crown without his father's consent which was obtained five days before the coronation. He was m. at York on the 24th of January, 1328, to Philippa, dau. of the Count of Hainault. Edward's mother and the Countess of Hainault were grandchildren of Philip III of France. The times in which Edward lived, the circumstances under which he was placed, the influences brought to bear on his conduct, conspired to make his life restless and turbulent. To meet the demands thrown on him, he had to exert to the utmost all the energy of mind that he possessed and his whole life was of continual strife. As a legislator he was shrewd and magnanimous and as a general on the field of battle he was vigilant and courageous and he was successful in many of the conflicts which gave glory to the English arms. Conquerors, though usually the bane of human kind, proved often in these feudal times, the most indulgent of sovereigns. They stood most in need of supplies, and not being always able to compel the people by force to submit to the necessary impositions, they were obliged to compensate them by equitable laws and popular concessions. Edward took no steps of moment without consulting his parliament, and generally obtained their approbation and support for his measures.

The parliament, therefore, rose into greater consideration during his reign, and acquired a more regular authority than in any former time; and even the House of Commons, which, during turbulent and factious periods, was naturally oppressed by the greater power of the crown and barons began to appear of some weight in the constitution. In the later years of Edward, the King's ministers were impeached in parliament and fell a sacrifice to their authority. Some attention was paid to the elections of their members; and lawyers, who were, at that time, men of very interior character, were totally excluded from the House during several parliaments. One of the most popular laws, enacted by any prince, was the statute, which passed in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, and which limited the cases of high treason, before vague and uncertain, to three principal heads: (1) the conspiring of the death of the King. (2) the levying war against him and (3) the adhering to his enemies. The Judges were prohibited, if any other cares should occur, from inflicting the penalty of treason, without application to parliament. Edward granted above twenty parliamentary confirmations of the Magna Charla; and these concessions are commonly appealed to as proof of the great indulgence to the people, and his tender regard for their liberties. But the contrary presumption is much more naturai.

If the maxims of Edward's reign had not been, in general, somewhat arbitrary, and if the great charter had not been frequently violated, the parliament would never have applied for these frequent conformations which could add no force to a deed regularly observed, and which could serve no other purpose than to prevent the contrary precedents from turning into a rule and acquiring authority. It was the effect of the irregular government during those ages, that a statute, which had been enacted some years, instead of acquiring, was imagined to loose force by time, and needed to be often renewed by subsequent statutes of the same sense and tener. The frequent confirmations in general terms of the churches' privileges proceeded from the same cause and all would appear ridiculous if we did not consider the circumstances of the times. It is a clause in one of Edward's statutes, "that no man of what estate of condition secver, shall be put out of land or tenement, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disherited, nor put to death without being brought in answer by due process of the law." This privilege was sufficiently secured by a clause of the Great Charter, which had received a general confirmation in the first chapter of the same statute. Why this clause? Plainly because there had been some late infringement of it which gave ?? umbrage to the Commons. But there is no article, in which the laws are more frequently repeated during the reign, almost in the same terms, than those of purveyance, which the parliament always termed an outragrous and intolerable grievance, and the source of infinite damage to the people. The parliament tried to abolish the prerogative altogether by prohibiting any one to take goods without the consent of the owners, and by changing the name of the purveyors, as they call it, into that of buyers, but the arbitrary conduct of Edward still brought back the grievance upon them, namely, that it was contrary to the Great Charter and to many statutes.

The disorder was in a great measure derived from the state of the public finances and could, therefore, the less admit of any remedy. The prince frequently wanted ready money, yet his family must be provided for and so was frequently obliged to employ force and violence for that purpose, and to give tallies, at what rate he pleased to the owners of the goods which he took into his possession. The kingdom abounded so little in commodities, that had the owners been strictly protected by law, they could easily have exacted any price from the King. Especially in his frequent exploits, when he came to distant and poor places, where the Court did not usually reside, and where a regular plan for supplying it could not be easily established. There was no act of arbitrary power more frequently repeated in this reign, than that of the imposition of taxes without the consent of parliament. Though that assembly granted the King more supplies than had ever been obtained by any of his predecessors, the great undertakings of the King and the necessity of his affairs obliged him to levy still more, and his great success against France added still more weight to his authority. These tax impositions came frequently in spite of the opposition of the Commons. The continual remonstrances of the Commons, however unavailing, served to prevent the arbitrary practices of the court from becoming an established part of the constitution. It is easy to imagine that a prince of so much sense and spirit as Edward would be no slave to the Court of Rome.

Though the old tribute was paid during the years of his minority, he afterwards with-held it, and when the Pope in 1367 threatened to cite him to the Court of Rome for default of payment, he laid the matter before his parliament. That assembly unanimously declared, that King John could not, without a national consent, subject his Kingdom to a foreign power against the exorbitant pretention. During Edward's reign, the statute of provisors was enacted, rendering it penal to procure any presentations to beneficies from the Court of Rome, and securing the rights of all patrons and electors, which had been extremely encroached on by the Pope. By a subsequent statute, every person was outlawed who carried any cause or appeal to Rome. The laity at this time seem to have been extremely prejudiced against the papal power, and even somewhat against their own clergy, because of their own connection with the Roman pontiff. They pretended that the usurpations of the Pope were the cause of all the plagues, injuries, famine; and poverty of the realm; was more destructive to them than all the wars, and was the cause why it contained not a third of the inhabitants and commodities, which it formerly possessed; that the taxes levied by him exceeded five times those paid to the King; that everything was venal in that sinful city of Rome; and that even the patrons in England had thence learned to practice simony without remorse or scrupple. They petitioned the King to employ no Churchman in any office of state, and they even spoke, in plain terms, of expelling by force the papal authority, and thereby providing a remedy against oppression which they neither could nor would any longer endure.

Men who talked in this strain were not far from the Reformation. But Edward did not think it proper to second all this zeal. Though he passed the statute of provisors, he took little care with its execution, and the parliament made frequent complaints of his negligence. He was content with having reduced such of the Romish ecclesiastics, who possessed revenues in England, to depend entirely on him by means of that statute. As to the police of the Kingdom, during this period it was still bad but certainly better than during the time of faction, civil war, and disorder, to which England was so often exposed. Yet there were several vices in the constitution, the bad consequences of which all the power and vigilance of the King could not prevent. The barons, by their confederacies with those of their own order, and by supporting and defending their retainers in every iniquity, were the chief abettors of robbers, murderers and ruffians of all kinds, so law could not be executed against their criminals. The nobility were brought to give their promise in parliament, that they would not avow, retain or support any felon or breaker of the law; yet this engagement was never regarded by them.

Commerce and industry were certainly at a very low ebb during this period. The bad police of the country alone affords a sufficient reason. The only exports were wool, skins, hide, leather, butter, tin, lead and such unmanufactured goods of which wool was by far the most considerable. Edward endeavored to introduce and promote the woolen manufacture by giving protection and encouragement to foreign weavers, and by enacting a law, prohibiting everyone to wear any cloth but of English make. The parliament prohibited the exportation of woolen goods, which was not so well judged, especially while the exportation of unwrought wool was made against the exportation of iron. The staple of wool, leather and lead was fixed by act of parliament in particular towns in England. But Edward, who commonly deemed his prerogative superior to law, paid little attention to the statutes, and when parliament remonstrated with him, on account of such acts of power, he told them, plainly, that he would proceed in the matter as he thought proper. There is not a reign among those of ancient English monarchs, which is more interesting than that of King Edward III, nor one where the domestic transactions will better discover the true genius of that kind of mixed government which was then established in England. Edward was a prince of great capacity, not governed by favorites, nor led astray by any unruly passion, sensible that nothing could be more effectual to his interests than to keep on good terms with his people. It appears, however, that the government, at best, was only a barbarous monarchy, not regulated by any fixed maxims, nor bound by any certain undisputed rights, which were in practice regularly observed. The King conducted himself by one set of principles and the barons by another; the Commons by a third and the Clergy by a fourth. All these systems of government were contrary and incompatible. Each of them prevailed according as incidents were favorable to it.

A great Prince rendered the monarchical power predominant, the weakness of a King gave reins to the aristocracy; a superstitious age saw the clergy triumphant and the people, for whom alone government was instituted, and who alone deserve consideration, were commonly the weakest of the whole. However the Commons, little obnoxious to any other order, though they sunk under the violence of the tempests, silently raised their head in more peaceful times, and while the storm was brewing, were courted by all sides, and thus received some accession to their privileges or some conformation of them.

Edward III died on the 21st of June, 1376, and was buried in Westminster Abbey near the body of his Queen, Philippa of Hainault.
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